Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson have made a private pact to “stick together” no matter what happens McGuinness has stated.

 He told  told a West Belfast festival event of the “secret agreement” between himself and  Robinson despite  the recent bomb in Derry.

“Peter Robinson and I have a private commitment that no matter what happens on the streets we are going to stick together,” Mr McGuinness told the gathering in the Falls Road library.

Until three years ago, he noted, , neither he nor Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams had ever actually spoken to  Robinson or his predecessor as both the First Minister and DUP leader, Ian Paisley.

“But we are having all kinds of discussions now,” he told the a ‘Peace Lines’ luncheon. hosted by Belfast Telegraph journalist and security specialist Brian Rowan.

“This is about giving our children a future,” he stated adding behind the Derry bomb “did not have a hope in hell of succeeding”.

He called those who  planned the Derry attack an “embarrassment” to the people of the city.

“It's about trying to undermine the peace process, about trying to undermine Sinn Fein's peace strategy,” he said.

“If they think they will destroy the political institutions the people of Ireland voted for, if they think they're going to destroy the working relationship I have with Peter Robinson, if they think they will undermine the peace process, they are living in cloud-cuckoo land.